J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

Little Pie Charts

I found a free font that displays pie charts: Pie Charts for Maps Font.

But it's not just for maps, of course. Here's an example of using this font in Excel:

The pie images are mapped to 22 alpha characters, from A through U. A is 0%, B is 5%, C is 10%, and so on. So, if you want to display a pie chart in a cell you need to convert the value to an alpha character. This formula, in cell E2, does the job:

=MID("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU",INT(D2*20)+1,1)

This formula returns the "O" character, which corresponds to values from 70.0% through 74.9%

- Reader Comments -

Following are comments in response to this item.
The most recent comment is at the bottom.

1. By Paul. Comment posted 14 August, 2008 2:33pm

   Cute. Too bad you have to install the font for each user. I wonder if you could save these as shapes in the file instead and then use some vba to produce the same exhibit.
2. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 14 August, 2008 3:17pm

   Tom Schreiner describes a method to "kind of" embed a font in a workbook:
   
   http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=328457
   
   I tried the sample he provided, and it works. Coincidentally, his example uses a different pie chart font.
3. By Mike. Comment posted 15 August, 2008 1:25am

   Free font? No, only for peronal use!
4. By Andrew. Comment posted 19 August, 2008 5:02pm

   John, those fonts look cool! Great site by the way!
   
   Paul, you could probably adapt this code
   http://blog.livedoor.jp/andrewe/archives/25965118.html
5. By xlsops. Comment posted 30 August, 2008 8:24am

   Hi John
   
   I have tried the method by Mr Tom Schreiner with the font downloaded, but it ain't working.
   I may have done it incorrectly, would you describe how you did this?
6. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 30 August, 2008 10:12am

   xlsop, sorry, but there's nothing that I can add that's not in that Mr. Excel thread.
7. By Jimmy Tong. Comment posted 01 September, 2008 6:02pm

   I am trying to install the font in my Excel and I do not know how. Please explain how to do so. Please do not tell me that the only way is to write down a code it should be a matter of copying the file into an special folder I did so and nothing happened.
   
   Regards,
   Jimmy
8. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 01 September, 2008 6:46pm

   Go to the site that has the font file, and click Help. It describes how to install a font in Windows XP and Vista.
   
   http://www.fontspace.com/help/
   
   After installing a new font, you need to re-start Excel in order for it to appear in the list of fonts.